


Sunlight's Caress

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Game Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, I Made Myself Cry, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12687615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: Time was cruel, and incomprehensible. Ignis didn’t know how long he was there, on the floor, finally giving voice to the agony he had been in.





	Sunlight's Caress

**Author's Note:**

> but then I make myself cry a lot when I think about end game

Home had never seemed so far away.

It was welcome, at the very least, the smell of old books and burnt candles, the steady tick of the longcase clock and the less regular drip of water from his kitchen faucet. The cool touch of keys, the doorknob, the worn-out wallpaper beneath his fingers. Something constant. Something familiar. Home.

… home was a million miles away, tucked away in a tomb in Insomnia where it had been pried away from him, leaving his outstretched hand cold and empty, bereft, and an empty place in his chest that the first sunlight in ten years hadn’t been able to fill.

He was _proud_ of him, godsdammit. Ignis had never been more proud of anyone in his life than he was his king now. When he had stood on the steps of the Citadel sounding, and looking, he imagined, like a real king and when he had ascended the stairs into the throne room, his heart had swelled with the most emotion he’d felt in a decade. And then it had been fit to burst when they lost the ability to summon their weapons, and the daemons were banished under first light, and they found Noctis’s body on the throne.

His own body was as heavy now as his heart had been in that moment. Ignis slumped against the doorframe, suddenly unable to keep himself up. His hands were shaking. He dropped the keys and didn’t retrieve them. He took a deep breath, and another, and swept away the few tears that had managed to escape from beneath his glasses.

He was _so_ proud of him. Noctis had done his duty, paid the price of a burden he shouldn’t have had to bear, and embraced it. He had come so far. He had grown so much. Ignis had known he would, known what he was capable of and what he could do. He’d known for a long time, since that very first stolen kiss outside of his apartment to the very last one shared in their tent. Their king was destined for great things… and destined to do them no longer.

He got two steps away from the door before he crashed to his knees, doubling over to put his face in his hands with an anguished sort of noise he hadn’t known he was capable of making. Emotion overwhelming him, flinging his glasses aside to leave them clattering uselessly across the hardwood floor, and giving in to the pain in his chest that had been decimating him since the day they had gone to the Citadel together. He hadn’t even closed the front door.

It was impossible to breathe. It felt like it had been for centuries. His chest hurt. His head hurt. His eyes, his hands, every ache and every injury and every scar from the past ten years throbbing in time with his heartbeat– the heart that was still beating, despite knowing it was irretrievably broken beyond repair.

Time was cruel, and incomprehensible. Ignis didn’t know how long he was there, on the floor, finally giving voice to the agony he had been in. When he could sit up, and sit back on his ankles and raise his head, his eyes felt swollen and his face drenched. Tears still falling freely down his cheeks, a runny nose, a puffy face. He imagined that he looked like hell. He imagined that that was a very fitting description. He had never been good at being in pieces, but at least Noct had always been there to help him pick them back up. Not this time, and never again.

He would pick them up himself, eventually. He would because Noct would want him to, and because Noct had sacrificed everything for him to be _able_ to. But Noct wouldn’t have begrudged him this, either. He could imagine the feel of his hand on his shoulder, and the smell of his hair, and his arms around his back. He could imagine Noct holding him and telling him that he would be _okay_ , but, for now, it was alright if he wasn’t.

A beam of sunlight touched his face. He almost went reeling back, years of cold and dark not easily forgotten. But then Ignis swallowed back the grief choking his throat and turned his face into the sun. Only for a moment, long enough to feel the warmth on his face and remember the way that Noct had used to smile at him.

He sagged back against the wall, and clenched his hands into fists in his lap.

 


End file.
